I suffer from migraines, very bad, very life-interrupting ones. I'm on medication, I meditate, exercise, drink lots of tea, actually cut back on my chocolate consumption (let me tell you, no easy feat), have certain scents to help with the pain (lavender), use eye packs in hot and cold for some small amount of help, and I've completely stopped eating rye bread based on one particularly debilitating migraine. (I never did figure out if it was the rye or just a bad day, but would you want to experiment with something like that?) I'm seriously worried about my liver, I take so many pain medications, and I drink enough water to fill the Atlantic at least once a year.
One thing I've never had done, and will fatally maim the first person to try it on me, is trepanation. You know, where they drill a hole in your head!
Celsus (215-300 AD) correctly described typical migraine triggers: "drinking wine, or crudity (dyspepsia), or cold, or heat of fire, or the sun." He forgot to add drops in barometer. Yup, a rainstorm'll get you every time.
Abulcasis (Abu El Quasim) (936-1013 AD)suggested putting a hot iron to the head or inserting garlic into an incision made in the temple. Please see my reactiuon to trepanation.
Ebn Sina (Avicenna) (980-1037) described migraines in his textbook El Qanoon fel Teb as "...small movements, drinking and eating, and sounds provoke the pain...the patient cannot tolerate the sound of speaking and light. He would like to rest in darkness alone." Yes please, this is perfect. Darkness and QUIET!
Abu Bakr Mohamed Ibn Zakariya Râzi (864-930 AD) noted the association of headache with different events in the lives of women, "...And such a headache may be observed after delivery and abortion or during menopause and dysmenorrhea." Er...no.
I take wonderful pain medication for this. Lovely knocks me out so I-can't-feel-a-thing drugs. Thank you modern science!
But medicine then still has a basis in today's world. I drink tea (nasty awful stuff I wouldn't wish on my worst enemny...wait, let me think. Yes, yes I would.) that has ginger, willowbark, and white-something in it. No, not white bark, that's licorice. And herbal Chinese tea that's even nastier. But hey, it works.
What ailemnts have your characters encountered? What did you use to treat them?
A History of Migranes
Avicenna
Al-Razi
Choler
Another Migraine History
One thing I've never had done, and will fatally maim the first person to try it on me, is trepanation. You know, where they drill a hole in your head!
Celsus (215-300 AD) correctly described typical migraine triggers: "drinking wine, or crudity (dyspepsia), or cold, or heat of fire, or the sun." He forgot to add drops in barometer. Yup, a rainstorm'll get you every time.
Abulcasis (Abu El Quasim) (936-1013 AD)suggested putting a hot iron to the head or inserting garlic into an incision made in the temple. Please see my reactiuon to trepanation.
Ebn Sina (Avicenna) (980-1037) described migraines in his textbook El Qanoon fel Teb as "...small movements, drinking and eating, and sounds provoke the pain...the patient cannot tolerate the sound of speaking and light. He would like to rest in darkness alone." Yes please, this is perfect. Darkness and QUIET!
Abu Bakr Mohamed Ibn Zakariya Râzi (864-930 AD) noted the association of headache with different events in the lives of women, "...And such a headache may be observed after delivery and abortion or during menopause and dysmenorrhea." Er...no.
I take wonderful pain medication for this. Lovely knocks me out so I-can't-feel-a-thing drugs. Thank you modern science!
But medicine then still has a basis in today's world. I drink tea (nasty awful stuff I wouldn't wish on my worst enemny...wait, let me think. Yes, yes I would.) that has ginger, willowbark, and white-something in it. No, not white bark, that's licorice. And herbal Chinese tea that's even nastier. But hey, it works.
What ailemnts have your characters encountered? What did you use to treat them?
A History of Migranes
Avicenna
Al-Razi
Choler
Another Migraine History
